A woman has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 21 and a half years for the murder of her seven-month-old daughter in Lancashire. Jennifer Crichton, 35, was sentenced at Liverpool crown court on Wednesday after being found guilty of killing Amelia and of causing grievous bodily harm to another child.
Crichton, of Leyland, was convicted of murder as well as three counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and one count of child cruelty against a second child, who cannot be named for legal reasons. The offences against the other child occurred years before Amelia's birth, but Crichton was not charged until last year following a five-week trial at Preston crown court.
Sentencing her, Mr Justice Holgate described Crichton as “self-centred, deceitful, manipulative and lacking in any real remorse”. He said Amelia's death had a devastating effect on her father, Richard Sheppard, whom Crichton had tried to blame, and on the rest of the family. The judge noted that Crichton was under a social services care plan at the time of the attack on Amelia on 19 April. Although Crichton told a psychiatrist she had shaken Amelia three times before the baby slipped from her grasp, expert evidence found a skull fracture consistent with a strike of a “violent nature”. The judge concluded that Crichton either forced Amelia to the ground or struck her head against a hard surface, and that the baby also suffered bleeding to the brain and injuries from being shaken vigorously.
The court heard that Amelia was born prematurely at 24 weeks and spent six months in intensive care before living at home in Leyland. Simon Jackson QC, defending, said Crichton was a “vulnerable woman unable to cope, ultimately, with the pressures of motherhood” and that her attempt to blame Sheppard was a “desperate act”. Brett Gerrity of the Crown Prosecution Service said Amelia was a “small, defenceless baby” who suffered catastrophic injuries at her mother's hands, and that Crichton denied responsibility until pleading guilty to manslaughter four weeks into the trial, a plea the prosecution did not accept.
